


Two ghosts

by DreamingOfABetterYou



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, M/M, Past Miscommunication, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25192201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingOfABetterYou/pseuds/DreamingOfABetterYou
Summary: Eames has to go to prison for document forgery. He spends his last night in freedom with Arthur.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	Two ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> This is all because I watched "Legend" tonight (with not one but two Tom Hardys!) and it had a lovely scene where two characters dance before one of them has to go to prison.  
> Needless to say, this came into life.  
> For ultimate ambiance, listen to "Your race is run" by Carter Burwell while reading, it's absolutely stunning.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!  
> Love, Liz x

It couldn’t have lasted. There is only so much illegal shit you could do before it starts catching up with you.

Arthur had barked out an incredulous laugh when Eames had told him, in that seedy bar in San Francisco after their latest job.

“I’m going down for document forgery” Eames had confided, weirdly quiet, weirdly un-Eames, watching his hands; possibly, Arthur gathered, wondering how they could have fucked up something so easy. He flinched when Arthur laughed, the sound drowned out in the general hassle of the bar.

“Fuck, Eames” Arthur gasped for air. “After everything you’ve done, _everything_ , they get you for that?”

“Not me, necessarily. Just someone I was for a while. Richard Kray.” His eyes flashed a bit as he looked up at Arthur’s amused groan; his gaze still uncomfortably heavy and earnest on the other man’s face, like he wanted to memorise him.

“Thought you were being clever, huh?” Arthur shook his head. Eames shrugged, thick arms spreading out over the back of the ratty sofa they were on. If Arthur concentrated, he could almost sense Eames’ warmth seeping into his dress shirt from where his arm lay along the line of his shoulders, close but not touching. _Never touching._ Arthur concentrated very hard.

“London gentleman gangster, seemed fitting” he grinned, crooked teeth glinting in the low light. _Good light to pick someone up_ , Arthur thought, as he watched the way the shadows smoothed over Eames’ cheekbones, curving around the line of his stubbled jaw. _Not too bright, so you don’t see all the little details you’d rather hide. The regret might come in the morning, but that’s ages away._

“You’re not a gangster” Arthur blurted out, after too long of a break to not be awkward, startling the other man. Eames answering smile was utterly, heartbreakingly devastating; Arthur wanted to slap it right off his face.

“Is that right, darling? Little old me, not a gangster?”

“A gangster wouldn’t have gotten himself caught” Arthur amended cheekily, desperately wishing for Eames’ eyes to shine with mischief again; anything apart from that sudden severity, that heavy grief. The comment didn’t quite land completely, but it was enough for a bit of a smile to curl in the corner of his mouth. _Let me lick that smile off your face so I can taste it for myself_ , Arthur thought, unbidden, but didn’t say. He wasn’t halfway drunk enough for a comment like this to be appropriate even in his own head.

“Let’s go” Eames suggested, as if struck by a sudden grand idea, and threw a too-large banknote on the small table between them. Arthur wondered if he had forged it, briefly, but reconsidered: For a criminal, Eames was remarkably decent to waitstaff. _Comes with growing up dirt-poor,_ Eames had said to him once; Arthur still wondered, sometimes, if it had been a lie, and wondered what it might mean if Eames had never once lied to him.

“The drinks are shit here, anyway.” Eames had spoken loud enough to be noticed by several mustachio-d twenty-something who glared at them as they rose; Arthur chuckled. Cardigan-wearing, softcover-carrying hipsters. They probably drank kombucha for fun. Maybe one should see being hated by them as an accolade, and not an affront.

* * *

The air was crisp enough to make Arthur’s chest clench when they stepped outside, and his breath left him like he had been punched in the stomach. At Eames’ concerned gaze, looking as if he’d shrug out of his horrid corduroy blazer if Arthur so much as shivered even once, he waved him off, ignoring the pang in his chest. _Don’t give me anything of yours; you’d never see it again. I’d guard it too jealously._

“When are you…when do you have to go?” he asked self-consciously after they had walked in silence for a few minutes, Eames’ hands deep in his pockets, seemingly lost in thought. At Arthur’s voice, he perked up immediately.

“…Tomorrow” he confessed, slowly; Arthur could taste his regret on his tongue and hated it.

“Tomorror” he repeated incredulously. “And you went out for drinks...with me?”

“So I did” Eames shrugged, forcedly casual, and quickened his step.

“Where are we going?” Arthur inquired impatiently, hurrying to catch up.

“My place” the other man offered shortly. “The last hurrah, you know.”

Arthur stopped dead in its tracks as the meaning hit him, cold dread settling in his stomach. _He knows. He knows, and he wants to get one convenient fuck out of you before he has to turn himself in_.

Some part of his devastation must have transferred to his face; when Eames turned after a few steps, after noticing Arthur wasn’t walking next to him anymore, he turned white as a sheet, and then red up to the tips of his ears.

“I didn’t…Arthur, I truly didn’t mean it like that.” He sounded _destroyed_ , Arthur noticed; haunted by the idea of spending more time without a familiar face, probably. _I wouldn’t have minded if you did mean it like that_ , his treacherous brain offered to say. He pressed his lips together tightly to not risk any unbidden words coming out. Squaring his shoulders, he stalked up to Eames and past him with long strides, hoping he was going the right way. “Let’s go, then” he threw over his shoulder carelessly, further hurrying down the street.

He heard Eames’ joyous chuckle behind him, and couldn’t help but smile.

* * *

Eames’ place was crowded, and cluttered, and beautiful. Afghans piled up everywhere – one from about every place he visited, Arthur guessed, if the variances in material, quality and colours were to go by; he recognised a few from various markets they had been at over the years – and a surprising amount of greenery cultivated the already-crammed-with-knick-knacks windowsills. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a plant man” Arthur murmured as he ran a gently knuckle along a furry lilac succulent, eyes flicking up to meet Eames’ gaze. Eames was watching Arthur’s hand, it seemed; he jumped slightly when the other man cleared his throat to prompt an answer. “I was hoping you could water them while I’m away. You see, darling, I’m gone too much for a pet. And it’s nice not to be all by yourself, all the time, isn’t it?” he mused as he made his way over to the kitchen, like his words hadn’t hit Arthur in the chest like a cannonball. _Are you lonely_ , Arthur ached to ask. _Are you as lonely as I am, ever?_

He didn’t ask; instead, he followed the noise to where Eames had promised to throw together some Gin Tonics, soft, melodic instrumentals already crooning from hidden speakers.

Leaning against the doorjamb, and seeing Eames already looking at him, Arthur’s skin prickled; he ached to run his hands over Eames’ chest, to feel that horrendous silk under his fingertips, to taste Eames’ pulse point and the nape of his neck and his wrist and to decide whether there was a discernible difference. He might have to repeat the process: Arthur was nothing if not meticulous. Overwhelmed by everything he wanted, Arthur burst out the first thing that spilled past his lips: “Why am I here, Eames?”

Eames grinned, insincerely. “Because I asked you to, and paid for the bloody drinks” he joked, poking the gin bottle a bit; it barely made a sound on the polished granite. Arthur wished for a scratch, a clang, anything to make them jump out of this unbearable tension; he wasn’t sure they would survive this unscathed, otherwise.

“Eames” he insisted, like it was a full sentence, a full argument, and maybe for him it was. Maybe it had been for a while, now.

Eames breathed in shakily; it was a good few seconds before he spoke after all. “Because I didn’t want anyone else looking at you, not tonight. You see, darling” he turned around sharply, away from Arthur’s gaze, fumbling to open the gin bottle before placing it back down on the counter, one hand tight around the neck, “I’ll be gone for six months. I figured I’d tell you now, and then you can work on not being angry anymore until I get out.” His tone was jovial, but his voice was trembling, and he wasn’t looking at Arthur. The other man stepped closer to him, reaching out a hand but not yet daring to touch, afraid of making him jump. Eames tensed even further as he saw Arthur approach out of the corner of his eye; even looking that harried, he was beautiful in the too-bright kitchen light.

“Tell me what, Eames?” Arthur asked gently, his hand now closing over Eames’, holding the gin bottle steady. He felt Eames’ side close to his chest, not touching just yet. _Let me stay like this_ , he thought suddenly, _let me shield you._ Suddenly, he was terrified, for what might happen. Still… “Tell me what?”

“I’ve loved you from the beginning, darling” Eames rushed out, like he couldn’t wait to get it over with, like the words had been sitting in his teeth for years and were too overzealous to pace themselves coming out. “I love you, and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m a crook, I know that, and now I’ll be going to prison and…” He dropped his head down, spine curving down, making his shoulder bump against Arthur’s chest. Arthur, never afraid of taking things that weren’t necessarily his, reached out to hold Eames up in a tight embrace.

“Shh” he soothed as the other man shook in his arms, gathering him closer even as his head reeled with possibilities, even as Eames squirmed in his arms to hold on to him too.

“I don’t want to go” Eames whispered desperately, breath warm at Arthur’s neck, hands clawing into Arthur’s shoulder blades.

“It’s just six months” Arthur promised with a confidence he didn’t feel, stroking long lines down the other man’s broad back as he held him by the back of his neck with the other. “Just six months, and then you can do whatever you want. Come back here, water your own fucking plants for a change. I’ll…I’ll be here, if you want me to” he rasped lowly, voice breaking at the very end.

Eames tensed slightly in his arms, pulling back to look Arthur in the eyes again; his own eyes were mirrored with tears. “Even though I said…”

“ _Because_ you said” Arthur replied fervently, cradling Eames’ jaw between long-fingered hands and leading their mouths together in a messy kiss.

He could feel Eames’ lips tensing against his own to hold back a sob, and pressed back even firmer to reassure, to insist. He petted Eames’ stubbled cheeks with his fingertips as they kissed, as Eames calmed enough to truly, _truly_ kiss him back and _oh_ he was glorious, wasn’t he?

“You absolute lunatic” he gasped, still tasting Eames’ tongue on his own, “telling me you’re going to prison after taking me out for drinks like it’s no matter if I say no. What if I’d said no?” he exclaimed, ruthlessly nuzzling into Eames’ neck, tasting the skin there – finally – while the other man was quite literally gasping for words.

“I would have told you when I got out, pet” Eames promised, crowding him up against the countertop. “It’s been so long, six months wouldn’t have mattered.”

Arthur’s felt the blood leave his face; gently pushing Eames a few inches away from him, he searched his gaze desperately. “How long?” he asked near-silently, knowing from the way Eames’ plush mouth twisted the answer would haunt him in his dreams.

“I’ve told you, darling: From the beginning. I reckon…seven years?” he confessed miserably. Arthur could see he was desperate to make light of it, to make it a joke, if only to prove to himself that he hadn’t been breaking his own heart over and over again, working with Arthur, needling him, trying to chat him up and playing the role of the insincere flirt all the while. “If I had known” Arthur whispered, leaning their foreheads together with a shaky sigh, “that you meant it, all that time, I would have taken you right on the floor, in the middle of that awful office in Minsk, and not cared who saw it.”

“You’d still have rug burn” Eames interjected playfully, visibly relieved to be offered an out.

“I wouldn’t care” the other man insisted. “I love you too. I have loved you for longer than I care to admit, and pretended I didn’t love you when I clearly did even longer.”

“The others” the forger started, and then broke off in embarrassment. Arthur shook his head gently, not wanting to dislodge their foreheads; he brought one hand up to lovingly card through Eames’ too-long hair, delighting in the way the other man hummed at that. “I couldn’t have you, but I tried to get over you. But I couldn’t. I never could.”

“Arthur…It’s terrible of me to ask” Eames admitted, even as he nuzzled into Arthur’s offered palm after dropping a kiss on his wrist, “but will you wait for me? While I’m in there?”

“Of course I will” Arthur breathed, leaning in even closer to kiss Eames again. It was slower, this time, sensual; the way you’d like to be kissed in the middle of a jazz concert, not hurrying to get anywhere, not proving anything to anyone, necessarily, not preparing for anything to happen after this. Just lips, and gentle fingertips, and a warm palm on the side of your neck. Eames was good at kisses like that, Arthur decided as he let himself be tipped back a bit against the counter so that the forger gained the advantage of height. He was good at kissing you like you were the only person in the world worth kissing at all. Swaying them softly, Eames pulled back, then ducked back in for two, three, four more short kisses, each one sweeter than the last; the fourth one barely a kiss with the way their lips tugged into smiles.

“I love you” Eames breathed, and his eyes sparked victoriously when Arthur answered: “I love you too.” Hooking his arms around Eames’ neck, Arthur let himself be held in the other man’s embrace, still swaying in time with the soft music. “Why are we dancing?” he muttered happily against Eames’ cheek, laughing when Eames led them in an uncoordinated spin, making them stumble over their own feet. “Because I haven’t danced with you in so long” he replied wistfully; fingers momentarily flexing where he held onto Arthur’s waist. “Do you remember when we danced in that bloody awful bar in Tokyo, and were nearly thrown out? You were gorgeous in the lights, and I wanted to kiss you, but I didn’t. I was too scared.”

Arthur nodded slowly, squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden threat of tears as he recalled that night six years ago. “I went back to the hotel with Haki that night, and wished it was you the entire time. The next day, I wanted to talk to you, invite you to lunch, anything, but you barely said a word to me the rest of the job.”

“I’m sorry, pet” Eames whispered against Arthur’s neck; his voice trembled so much that Arthur caught one of Eames’ hands in his own and held it tight, pulling it up against his loving mouth. _Will it ever be enough, to catch up on that time we wasted?_

“I’m sorry too” Arthur murmured, resting their intwined hands on his own chest as they continued dancing, a bit absurdly, in Eames’ too-bright kitchen, the music in the background echoing wistfulness and bittersweet hope for a future in which they could finally stop chasing the ghosts of the people they once dreamed they might deserve to become.

* * *

The next morning, Arthur watched Eames shave meticulously, arms wrapped around his waist from behind, pressing his damp cheeks into the other man’s warm skin from time to time, and wishing he didn’t know how he had gotten here, in order to be sure this was only a dream. It wasn’t; he had checked. Multiple times.

Leaving together, hands clasped tightly, had its own absurdity; Eames folded Arthur’s limp fingers around his house key after he had locked the door. “Promise you’ll keep my plants alive” he said imploringly, his eyes shining and searching and asking for everything but plants. “I will” Arthur replied anyway, and meant it.

Getting a rental car on a Friday morning was its own personal hell, but Arthur couldn’t stomach the idea of having a cab drive them to the prison, and then having to sit through the pitiful looks the cab driver would shoot Arthur through the mirror on the way back. Better to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a subpar rental which would allow Arthur to, occasionally, stop at the side of the road and scream into his shaking hands for a bit before catching himself and driving on.

The ride was regrettably short, even with Arthur following every traffic rule to a t – which he hadn’t done since he had been a nervous teenager getting his license, under his real name at that. The County Jail soon loomed in front of them; Eames shuddered further back into his seat. Arthur let the car gently roll out before tapping the brakes to come to a complete standstill.

“Hey” he called as he placed a hand on the clenched fists in Eames’ lap. “It’s six months. Minimum security. Nobody in there will know who you are, alright? And I’ll visit you so much you’ll grow tired of me” he promised faux-cheerfully.

“I can tell when you’re lying, pet” Eames choked out even as he smiled, “that’s my job.”

“Your only job right now is to come back” Arthur contradicted, kissing the misery off of the shape of Eames’ lips for a moment. “To your plants, and your backyard, and your unnecessarily big fridge, and me.”

“Always you” Eames promised in a whisper, so close he was pushing the words back into Arthur’s mouth like a stamp. “I love you, Arthur, so much.”

“And I love you” Arthur gave back, pulling Eames closer for one kiss before cradling his head between his palms. “Get out, before they arrest us for public indecency. I’ll wait right here when you get out, I promise.”

“I love you” Eames repeated desperately as he unbuckled the seat belt. Opening the door, he looked back once more. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Of course you will” Arthur nodded, and helplessly watched as Eames climbed out of the car. _I love you I love you I love you_ he thought as his eyes followed the other man to the impossibly tall wire fence. He raised his hand in a last wave as Eames stepped through the open gate, and let it fall heavily on the steering wheel when the man was out of sight. Only then did he allow himself to curl into himself and let out a howl he hadn’t even known he could make. _Who will Eames be when he comes back_ , he wondered, and tried not to entertain the possibility that this Eames might be fully uninterested in a future with Arthur.

Thankfully, years upon years of lists and priority-making had made Arthur quite good at compartmentalising; no use dabbling in uncertain futures.

For now, he’d have to learn how to keep plants alive.


End file.
